The Descent of Woman
Last week I picked up Elaine Morgan's The Descent of Woman. Morgan has an entertaining conversational style that makes her book not only informative, but quite a pleasure to read. She makes quite a good case for the Aquatic Ape Theory (see previous post), and how evolutionary logic should explain how unique human traits in men and women, developed.

Also she has a great passage I'd like to share with you:

[explaining baboon behavior] As soon as an outside enemy appears, hostile encounters between members of the male cohort cease. All aggression is directed outward, against the enemy. And the rewarding sensation of hostile arousal against the enemy is deepened and enriched by the warmer and more rewarding sensation of love for, and solidarity with, the brother in arms.

... Because the most disturbing thing about the primate male bond is that it works only when the leopard [or enemy] comes. And if it is rewarding for all the male cohort, it is especially so for the leader, who knows that the leopard's arrival is the signal for all rivals to cease challenging, for unruly subordinates to step into line, for all the strength of the pack to be subservient to his will. An alpha-male baboon only tastes this heady sensation at the approach of a real enemy, but an alpha Homo sapiens with enough ingenuity can invent his own leopard.

... The whole business of politics and government as conducted by males hinges around the process of identifying or inventing the kind of leopard that will unite the greatest possible number of men in the tightest possible bond.

In wartime it is easy: they have territorialism and xenophobia on their side, and the other tribe, or the other nation, constitutes the leopard. But as nation states grow larger and administration more complex, men have to be given the drive to exert themselves, and cooperate, and carry out orders, for long periods when there is no war. They subdivide into factions and cliques: the Whigs are the leopard, or the Republicans, or the abolitionists; and if bond shows sign of weakening they bring on a sabre-tooth tiger: Popish Plot, International Jewry, Yellow Peril, Bolsevik Conspiracy, capitalist lackeys. It is a curious way to run a society, but this is the way men are built, and this is the psychological mechanism that powers most of their political systems.